Draymond Green and the anatomy of a defensive masterpiece

Warriors stifle the Bucks behind Green’s masterful performance against Giannis Antetokounmpo.

With under five minutes left in the third quarter, the Golden State Warriors were sauntering back to set their half-court defense, with the Milwaukee Bucks’ Giannis Antetokounmpo bringing the ball down. Defending him was the Warriors’ undisputed premier defender: Draymond Green. With Giannis calling for Brook Lopez to set a ball screen for him in an atypical “4/5” pick-and-roll setup, Green voraciously denies Giannis from making use of the screen, forcing Giannis to drive in isolation.

Green’s body of work and pedigree as a defender — as well as the fact that he was giving Giannis plenty of difficulty in single coverage — should mean Green needs little help from his teammates to stifle a drive from Giannis. But Gui Santos, guarding Lopez, feels compelled to sink in and help Green, despite no indication that Green was in danger of letting Giannis through.

Which makes Giannis’ read extremely easy:

Suffice to say, Santos’ help one pass away off of Lopez was completely unnecessary, a fact informed by possessions that preceded it and possessions that came after it. Green’s single-coverage performance against Giannis was, at the very least, a defensive masterclass from an all-time defender. At most, it’s film that can be submitted for his candidacy as a member of this season’s All-Defensive Team; whether that warrants a first-team or second-team inclusion is up for debate.

“Just goes to show how much of a Hall of Fame defender (Green) is,” Brandin Podziemski said after the game. “I think he cements his name in that every single night. I think (guarding) Giannis, Zion (Williamson), and Paolo (Banchero) have been his best three performances so far this year.

“We trust him... I think a little bit, in that third quarter, we didn’t, you know, kind of trust it, helping of (Kyle Kuzma) and he made a couple threes. And Draymond was adamant that he has Giannis, he’s good. And so, I think we were able to take that on in the fourth quarter and let Draymond take him on his own. For Giannis to only make five field goals as a guy who averages 20 points in the paint a night, that’s really good.”

When asked if he thinks one of Green’s biggest pet peeves is overhelping unnecessarily during one-on-one possessions, Podziemski answered in the affirmative.

“As a player around Draymond, you got to find a healthy balance of doing what the coaches want, but when you’re on the floor doing what Draymond wants,” Podziemski said. “Just a balance you got to try to find, because we kind of have our initial scouting report, what we’re going to do. A lot of times it gets scrapped because Draymond sees something. You just got to find the balance and I think we did that tonight.”

Green himself gave his thoughts on defending Giannis one-on-one and the problem of overhelping.

“I didn’t want guys to overhelp because if he goes off and he gets 40 and we stop everybody else we still got a great chance of winning the game,” Green said. “I just didn’t want them overhelping too much and all of those guys like Taurean Prince, Brook Lopez got it going there for a minute, (Kuzma), I didn’t want them guys to end up kind of taking them home because we’re overly focused on Giannis. Just trying to tell the guys, ‘Be there early, but don’t stay there. Be there early and then start exiting out to your guy, I’ll get back.’ We struggled with it in the third quarter but we were great the first two quarters and we were great during the fourth quarter.”

Green was justified in such a message, considering what he was able to do against a player who averages:

• 30.2 points
• 61.7% on two-point shots
• 61.7% True Shooting
• 19.7 points in the paint

Tonight, Giannis was held to 20 points on 5-of-16 shooting from the field (33.3% on two-point shots) and 44.2% True Shooting. Most of his production was from the free-throw line (10-of-15), while scoring a mere 10 points in the paint — half of his typical production on a given night.

Green’s excellence as an individual defender is merely a piece of the greater puzzle. In its most complete form, that puzzle paints a picture of a defender who can truly guard all positions at an extremely high level. Guarding Giannis gave Green a platform anew to prove that he is still among the NBA’s premier stoppers and defensive anchors.

As such, he becomes the anchor of the defensive stop below: an empty-corner pick-and-roll between Damian Lillard and Giannis with the right side emptied, making it difficult for the Warriors to send help. In such situations, help typically comes from the weak side, especially if the on-ball defender becomes compromised and the screener’s defender is put in a tough spot: guarding both the ball handler and the roll man.

Quinten Post sees Green in a potentially compromising spot and rotates over to help on Giannis’ roll. As it turns out, however, Green didn’t need Post’s help after all; he becomes a one-man stopper against what would otherwise be a deadly action between the Bucks’ best players:

As a testament to Green’s versatility and capability in terms of wearing multiple defensive hats, he spends the possession below being the on-ball defender whose task is to navigate over a screen. Giannis runs inverted pick-and-roll action with Kuzma as the screener — watch Green easily navigate the screen, stay attached to Giannis, and block his shot from behind (with containment help from Post):

Green’s ability to not only shuffle through coverages but also shuffle between different defensive roles is what maintains his value to the team, despite recently turning 35-years old and having lost some of his athleticism. The body may not consistently respond to what the mind wants — but Green’s mind remains as sharp as ever.

Sometimes, the body does respond with the kind of vigor that was present on a nightly basis during Green’s prime. It allowed him to take Giannis one-on-one, despite a five-inch height disadvantage. Having a 7’1” wingspan helps tremendously in that regard, armed with the knowledge that Giannis prefers to get to the rim over taking jumpers, despite an improved success rate in the mid-range area.

Informed with that tendency, Green makes use of everything at his disposal: physicality, handsy-ness, and lowering his center of gravity.

Noticeably, Green’s aggression and audacity has ramped up lately — coincidentally, beginning with the acquisition of Jimmy Butler. Whereas Green was previously counted on to be the back-side defender plugging gaps and erasing mistakes made at the point of attack, Butler slots into that role seamlessly — allowing Green to help slow things down at the point of attack.

As such, watch Green and Butler in the possession below:

When Green steps up to hedge against the pick-and-roll, Butler pinches in to momentarily cover Giannis. When Green makes his recovery toward Giannis, Butler gets back toward his man — a perfectly executed symphony of defensive synchronization. From there, Green bottles another Giannis drive, forcing Giannis to give up the ball. The rest of the Warriors defense rotates on a string to force a stop.

“(Butler) is like me,” Green said. “He thinks like me, he sees the floor like me — or better... There are certain things he sees better than me. To have a guy like that, you add him into the fold, for me it makes me all the more comfortable to know that I can be aggressive, that I can take some chances and know at the end of the day there’s gonna be Jimmy on the backside covering up any mistakes that anyone makes. That’s usually me in that position covering up for mistakes.

“I may do something that’s unorthodox. I may do something that’s not quite how we schemed it. But it’s something that I saw could work. Every now and then you take those chances and they don’t work, you could get burned. With Jimmy on the backside, he covers it up. He’ll see me going, he’ll plug that spot.”

Green seems rather confident of his new teammate, justifiably so. In turn, he seems more confident of his teammates across the board, a fact that has translated to a 107.6 defensive rating in the last 18 games since Butler started his Warriors tenure — second in the NBA over that stretch, with only the Detroit Pistons having a better mark.

That has also resurrected talks of Green potentially becoming a frontrunner for Defensive Player of the Year — an award he admittedly is aiming to win once again.